common understanding. A concert of views and conduct between the principal Powers of the Continent, which understand as we do all the dangers of the present and the necessities of the future, would have a great influence on future events, and would prevent alliances or resolutions from being left to chance.

In the matter of a general Congress the Emperor could not, without diverging from the course he had traced for himself, put forward a programme or enter into concert with some few of the Powers to draw up a plan beforehand, and thus prelude by separate negotiations to deliberations which it was proposed to commence without preconceived ideas or particular engagements. But this meeting, as it cannot now be complete, will not have the arbitral authority which would have belonged to a European Congress; we, therefore, think it expedient that, before meeting, the Sovereigns should charge their Ministers of Foreign Affairs to come to an understanding on the questions which are to be discussed, so that the Congress may have a greater chance of arriving at a practical result.

You are therefore authorized, in accordance with what precedes, to explain the Emperor's intentions to the Court to which you are accredited, and to leave a copy of this despatch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In this document M. Drouyn, by a very transparent diplomatic artifice, endeavours to represent England as the only power which has refused: this refusal is referred to four times; and to it alone the failure of the first result which the Emperor's Government had anticipated from the appeal made by him to Europe' is ascribed. The real state of things was, we have seen, as follow: Russia, Austria, and Prussia in substance refused to accede, unless the questions to be discussed were clearly defined;" 'The direction to be given to the labours of Congress agreed upon;'†

.*

The overtures made as to the Imperial preliminary views;' and 'proposals prepared by ministers, for the sanction of Sovereigns.'

At the date of his second despatch

* Russia,

(December 8th) it is not pretended that either of these three Powers had expressed its satisfaction with the explanations contained in his first despatch of November 23rd, which was published in the London Gazette of the 27th, or had acceded to the Imperial invitation, which on the contrary, was therefore in effect, refused unanimously.

Starting at full speed from the transparent fallacy which we have just exposed-viz., of England being the only power which refused to accede, the document soon breaks down. It fully admits that after the refusal of England there could be 'no race.' Nothing remained but a resort to a restricted Congress, which will 'not have the arbitral authority which would have belonged to a European Congress, and therefore the several Ministers of Foreign Affairs should, before its meeting, be charged to come to an understanding on the questions which are to be discussed, so that the Congress may have a greater chance of arriving at a practical result.' The self-contradictory character of the argument is the natural prelude to this most lamé and impotent conclusion.'

The restricted Congress being admitted to have no arbitral authority, and no suggestion being made that it would have any practical authority whatsoever, or arrive at any practical result, France, in order to give it a greater chance of arriving at such a result, totally reverses the policy which she officially proclaimed only one month earlier. The absence of any preconceived system, of any previous understanding with any of the Sovereigns, and the disclaimer of all intention to fix beforehand for the other Courts the programme of the Congress which he proposes (so strongly insisted on in the previous correspondence), gives place to a distinct declaration of the necessity of adopting the very course so recently and persistingly repudiated.

The failure of the whole scheme

+ Prussia.

of French policy is most striking.* In any country having a responsible government, the result would inevitably have been a change of administration and of policy. M. Drouyn and his colleagues (whether of the Portefeuille or only of the Porte-voix) have no such results to dread; they are but the Prefects of the Imperator. Such a countermarch was, however, a most inglorious termination of the splendid campaign [in Utopia] which was the original dream of the Imperial imagination- Son unique bout-toute sa pensée.' It cannot be denied that in the face of Europe his Majesty in this instance was

Sent bootless home, and weatherbeaten back.

Whatever may be the 'crumbling state of the foundation on which the political edifice of Europe now rests,' and however desirable it may beto clear away the ruins,' we cannot but think that the great proprietors have wisely decided not to contract for the necessary repairs with the youngest of sovereigns,'

whose airy scaffolding has fallen before the steady breeze of the public opinion of Europe.

His wonderful career, his grand position, his surprising progress through the school of adversity to the throne to which he has been called by Providence and the will of the French people,' the startling contrast between his signal failures and his brilliant triumphs, a career which has already rivalled the most romantic flights of fiction, and has dazzled the eyes of nations, have alike failed to convince the world that his ostentatious disclaimers of ambition and vanity rest on any better foundation than his equally prominent claims to frank and loyal policy. Whatever was his real object or his secret purpose in this particular case, it was baffled; but it still remains in our opinion involved in the deepest mystery; and on a calm review of the whole Congress correspondence, we have come to the conclusion that it is impossible—

To trace him in the tedious ways of art, And hold him pace in deep experiments.

III.-MEMORIAL POETRY.

HE curfew tolls the knell of

"THE

parting day.' I suppose that Gray was thinking of summer when he wrote the line; and the summer twilight, with its lowing herds, its drowsy tinklings, its smell of sweet clover and winnowed hay and the milking-pail, is a very pleasant season. But I have a particular attachment to the parting hour when the trees are leafless, and the fields are white with snow-the twilight of the dying year. At what other season do you see such a fire in the west? do you return from the cover with such a keen glow of enjoyment? does your cigar burn so brightly? does your pulse beat so steadily? That walk home from the Ardlaw Hill, when the frosty daylight is failing, when Donald grows confidential about the smuggling forays in which he has borne part, when the Commodore spins a yarn about South Sea Islanders, and the trade in African gold and niggers, is one for which I have a keen relish.

The guns are discharged outside the Muckle Planting,' to the great edification of sundry rabbits, who are scampering in the moonlight. This is our curfew bell. The Doctor descends from his study, Letty sees that her tea-tray is in readiness, Cissy is violently combed and curried, and scrambles into her new white frock. By the time the sportsmen appear the fire is blazing lustily in the Cottage drawing-room, and Letty is 'making tea.' The afternoon cup of tea, a nice apology for a charming half-hour's chat, was a happy thought. At the Cottage they adopted the reformed doctrines at an early period-their neighbour at the Lodge being always welcome. The Doctor brings the morning papers with him from his study, and comments upon the news of the day-how a battle, where thirty thousand men were killed and wounded, has been fought at some place in America, whose obscure or plebeian name is destined henceforth to become heroic; how the

AN ESSAY BY THE DOCTOR.

On

Or

Germans are drinking the health of the fatherland in a confused, passionate manner; how the Danes are gathering quietly along the northern frontier; how the Thames has been frozen over; how Lord Palmerston has been out with the harriers. other days the new novel-in the religious-sensation line-is in requisition, and the Doctor reads for our edification (and he reads well) the crowning chapter, wherein the hero, on discovering that he has married his grandmother, is taken in hand by Dr. Cumming, and makes an exemplary end as a district-visitor. Or it may be the new poem-Jean Ingelow's grand pathetic ballad on the high tide in Lincolnshire, or a lyric by Miss Procter, or Mr. Woolner's My Beautiful Lady. it may be an essay from that Book of Essays, DE OMNIBUS REBUS ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS, on which rumour declares the Doctor to be at present engaged. The Commodore listens gravely-a very simple, uncorrupted man is the Commodore, yet with a poetic instinct in his heart, which silent night-watches under African skies and among Indian seas may have tended to quicken into activity. Cissy rolls herself up in a cashmere shawl, with one of the terriers and a white kitten, at Letty's feet. Letty, as usual, is superbly arranged. Whatever she does is done with a pure natural grace, not without a touch of daring, which makes the manner of doing distinctive and peculiar. She has rummaged out of some obscure closet the old-fashioned spinning-wheel which belonged to her grandmother and her greatgrandmother, and has had it set up and brought into use. Letty at the spinning-wheel-her delicate little foot in its gold-beaded slipper resting upon the foot-board, as she daintily arranges the threads over which her shapely head is bent-is a picture which unites the glory of the Italian with the quaintness of the Dutch. One of Titian's blueeyed, golden-haired Madonnas in Flemish masquerade! But it is one

of the prettiest of masquerades—as young Horace Lovelace, the parson's son, very clearly appears to think, when he occasionally joins our teaparty-and therefore I do not wonder that many great artists have delighted to represent their heroines employed at the spindle, from Helen of Lacedæmon to Sylvia of Haytersbank.

A simple society, pleased with simple pleasures! But to-day-this Christmas day-a shadow has fallen upon our happiness. We are sad because a great man has been taken from us suddenly-because that good white head, which all men knew,' has been laid low. When our old postman, Sandy, brought me my letters this forenoon he said to me, 'Ye'll have heard, sir, that Mr. Thackeray is gaen.' Sandy is a bit of a scholar; he is, moreover, a High Churchman and a High Tory; not unfamiliar with the literature in which the distinction between the king de jure and the king de facto is drawn with such quaint precision; not unfamiliar with the controversies about transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the like. Yet even Sandy, sublimely elevated above popular excitement, as a postman and antiquary should be, was affected when he told us that the great man was dead.

Some of us had known him well, and had loved-as who could help loving?-that noble simple gentleman. I recalled the last time I had seen him, a year or two previously, when I found him sitting in his den at the top of his house in Onslow-square. Even then he had suffered much and long, and the traces of suffering were visible in his face. I think that even in his brightest moods it was possible to detect these traces, sometimes in the eyes, more frequently about the grave curves of the mouth. Of course I was ushered into his denof course he told me how much, and from what, he was suffering. This perfect unreserve, this almost childish openness of nature, was characteristic of Thackeray. He was willing that his whole life should be laid bare, and looked through. He seemed to say, There is my life—if

there are any blemishes in it, make the most of them.' The clear transparent simplicity of the boy at the Charterhouse never deserted him. In fact, he often reminded one of a boy. On this very day of which I am speaking he wore an old shooting-coat much too short for him: it sat upon the giant as a boy's jacket would fit an ordinary mortal. And then the contrast would strike one. This mighty, vehement, whiteheaded boy had written the simplest, purest, most idiomatic English; he had sketched, with a touch incomparably delicate and finished, the intricate mental relations of a meditative but feverish age, of an active yet pensive society; he was a master of that implied and constructive irony which is the last refinement of banter-that irony which is a feature of our modern literature, of which we see no sign in the emphatic satire of Dryden, only an occasional trace in the polemical writings of Pope and Bolingbroke, but which bursts into perfect flower in the serious books of Mr. Thackeray and the satirical speeches of Mr. Disraeli. That this should have been a pure, healthy, honest, boyishly noble and chivalrous soulthat this great-hearted gentleman should have been tender, gentle, upright, true in thought and deed, did not surprise one; nor yet that he should have had such moods of wild fun and airy riot as are embodied in his lesser works, such moods as Heine describes in one inimitable sentence, when he says, 'At noon I feel as though I could devour all the elephants of Hindostan, and then pick my teeth with the spire of Strasburg cathedral.' But it did surprise one at first to learn that this was the most finished literary artist of his age-a wise, sad moralist, an extraordinarily subtle humorist, a writer whose stealthy charm and subtle perfection of style and thought almost baffle analysis. This did surprise one, until by some quaint expression, some passing phrase, unconsciously betraying the natural facility, the admirable critical insight of the speaker, the veil was withdrawn, and it became evident that the author of Vanity Fair

and the man beside you were truly one and the same. Yet, with all his boyishness of manner, there was something leonine about Thackeray. 'And there came up a lion out of Judah!' Miss Brontë exclaimed, when she first saw Lawrence's picture of the giant. With such a presence, he might easily have been tempted to assume an air of false dignity; but he was too wise to do so; for that bright and frank guilelessness could not fail to be the most consummate charm of a man who, intellectually, possessed the subtlety of the serpent. This openness, indeed, was sometimes inconvenient. He felt blame sensitively, and could not always conceal his sensitiveness. On the other hand, a few sentences of sympathetic appreciation, a few kind words,' even when spoken by an unknown critic, were sure to bring cordial thanks from the great man, whose humility was as unfeigned as his greatness.*

I should pursue my old trade of novelist for some time yet to come. Meanwhile her image stands before St. Paul's, for all the world to look at; and who knows but some one else may be beforehand with both of us, and sketch her off while we are only laying the palette?

We talked for a while about the dear friend, the noble gentleman, who had gone over to the majority; and then we fell silent, until the Doctor roused us by proposing somewhat shyly to read a paper on the Memorial Poets, one of the latest contributions, as we guessed, to the yet unpublished De Omnibus. Somewhat shyly, I say, for when his own writings are in question the Doctor manifests an exceptional shyness. I do not know why this should be, unless, perhaps, that he allows a vein of sentiment-which he resents and ridicules in others, which never enters into his ordinary conversation-to flow from his pen, and touch his written prose. Having secured our assent, he drew a manuscript from his pocket, and began to read.

which he so ardently cherished:

Queen Anne has long been my ambition; but she will take many a long year's labour, and I can't ask any other writer to delay on my account. At the beginning of this year I had prepared an announcement, stating that I was engaged on that history; but kept it back, as it was necessary that

scattereth her poppies, we wage

an incessant but ineffectual warfare. We rear tombstones, and sepulchral urns, and Roman columns, whose ashes sleep sublime, buried in air, and looking to the stars,' and Egyptian pyramids, to preserve the unprofitable memory of a name. We strive passionately to perpetuate the